How This Whole Thing Started

I was commenting with my friends recently that I rarely watch regular TV anymore. With the exception of live sporting events, is there anything I really find worthy on TV? Cable news stations have turned into raging nonsense. Other than my enjoyment of Seinfeld reruns (the 100th time seeing George as the marine biologist never gets old), what else? Not much.

Over the past few years I have caught on to the show The Rubin Report and I found his work wonderful. Dave Rubin is a first class guy pursuing first class ideas. His long format show allows for in-depth discussions with guests that are fascinating, revealing and mind expanding. The first episode I watched was an interview of Yaron Brook from the Ayn Rand Institute who introduced me to Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism. Since then I have been hooked on The Rubin Report and the broader Intellectual Dark Web movement.

This transformation away from TV continued as I began listening to audio podcasts of the Rubin Report and other shows while I worked out and while I drove. I watched various other talk show format discussions on YouTube including The Yaron Brook Show, The Ben Shapiro Show, the Joe Rogan Experience. I even dragged my beautiful wife to a live lecture by Jordan Peterson and co-hosted by Dave Rubin at the Balboa Theater in San Diego back in June 2018.

As I witnessed more of these podcasts and how easily a show can be created with relatively inexpensive technology, I thought to myself, “Hey, I can do this!”. So that’s how this John Riley Project began.

The concept is to explore big ideas with guests on topics I enjoy discussing. Politics, sports, economics, history and more. This will be as much about broadening my own knowledge as it is in expressing my own views. The plan is to invite political candidates, athletes, coaches, superfans, comedians and entrepreneurs building businesses to change the world. We’ll start with locals in the Poway area and then gradually broaden our scope as the show gets a rhythm. By giving them a platform to tell their story, I hope to learn, inquire, challenge and share.